On marketing.

Renaissance Smells Profits In Musty P&g Scents

October 31, 1996|By George Lazarus.

Cover Girl is huge--perhaps pushing $1 billion in annual sales at Procter & Gamble. Fragrance Old Spice is big, too. But the jury is still out on Max Factor cosmetics, another P&G acquisition, which hasn't panned out as expected.

With the focus clearly on those major brands, Procter has now unloaded marginal fragrances such as NaVy, NaVy for Men, Jaclyn Smith's California, California for Men, and Toujours Moi to privately held Renaissance Cosmetics.

Sales of these low-volume Procter fragrances are said to top $50 million annually, pocket change for the giant Cincinnati-based firm.

Renaissance, which has offices and/or plants in New York, Greenwich, Conn., and Los Angeles, says that these Procter brands were profitable, but observers say collectively the fragrances have been losing money, perhaps $1 million a year. A Procter spokesperson says profit "wasn't much."

Renaissance, formed a few years ago, has pulled off a number of other acquisitions in cosmetics, fragrances and nail care, and total global annual sales of $400 million.

Included are such brands as Chantilly, the first major mass-market fragrance produced in the U.S., which dates to 1940; Tabu; Canoe; and English Leather, the latter via a buyout of the former MEM Co.

Following such acquisitions, Renaissance has introduced brand names like White Chantilly, Dreams by Tabu, and Navigator by Canoe, all marketed by its Dana division, acquired in late 1994.

Heading up Renaissance is Thomas V. Bonoma, who still maintains an office-residence in Cambridge, Mass., from where he once headed up the old Benckiser Consumer Products operation.

When he launched Renaissance, Bonoma's strategy was to acquire and turn around older brands that hadn't received much marketing support but that still retained strong heritages.

Restoring brands has always been one of Bonoma's skills, which will be strongly tested with the pickup of these Procter scents.

Howard for Ward's? Could Matthew Howard, a former Montgomery Ward & Co. executive, return as the new CEO of the retailer? Howard's name has resurfaced as a possibility following his resignation as president of Tandy Corp.'s Computer City retail chain in Dallas this week. He lasted less than six months at the computer retailer, which is seen as having deep troubles. Howard got along well with Bernard Brennan, who will give up some of his posts but remain chairman of Ward's holding company. There had been speculation that the Ward's CEO position might be offered to Kmart executive Warren Flick, but he now has been boosted to president-chief operating officer of Kmart stores in the U.S. Kmart may have promoted Flick to counter any overtures from Ward's.

- Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood picked W.B. Doner & Co.'s Baltimore office for a $3 million to $5 million account.. Less than a month ago, Loyola University Chicago and Bozell Chicago terminated a corporate ad campaign for the institution, a program that over two years totaled $1.8 million in ad spending. Loyola University Medical Center, a subsidiary of the university, was part of that campaign but reportedly balked at further promotion. A spokeswoman for Loyola Medical Center said it couldn't find depth in health-care communications with those Chicago agencies available for such an account, there being conflicts at some shops. Still, Loyola didn't have to go all the way to Baltimore to pick an ad agency.